Samsung's new Galaxy Buds 4 are boring - but what's next might creep you out

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Premium earbuds already sound great and cancel noise well. It's time for something new.
• Integrated cameras are the next step for innovation in this product category.
• Navigation, live translation, and fitness are the top applications.

Earbuds are becoming boring. The technology has matured enough to the point that essentially all premium earbuds have fantastic audio quality and noise cancellation. Those two features on their own are not selling points.

Samsung's new Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro reinforce this idea. This generation's "novel" feature is the option to use eartips or not, while including incremental updates to the microphone, noise cancellation, and audio performance. In short, they're all things we've seen before. 

Also: Samsung Unpacked 2026 live blog: Galaxy S26 Ultra specs, Buds 4 Pro, preorder deals ...